Employee turnover cost your business money. Employee retention is practising and implementing strategies to combat this turnover. It is essentially an organization’s ability to keep its employees. Retaining employees is not an easy task and an even greater task is repeatedly having to go through the hiring process. It is, therefore, a company’s responsibility to ensure they treat their employees well, both to motivate and retain them for a longer period. One of the most effective methods companies can use to maximize productivity and performance is maximizing on employee’s commitment and motivation.
The Significance of Employee Retention
As a point of reference, entry level employees can typically cost an organisation about 50 – 60% of their annual salary to replace, so it stands to reason that increasing employee retention or taking remedial action on the source of this can offset the expense.
Key Factors Contributing to Dissatisfied Employees
There are a range of factors which can contribute to employee dissatisfaction leading them to part ways with an organisation. Each of these factors comes with its own set of circumstances and remedial strategies.
The most common ones are:
- Low employee morale
- Absence of a clear career path
- Financial insecurity
- Lack of job satisfaction and commitment to the organization
‘Telltale’ Signs of Unfulfilled Employee
Signs telling us that an employee is dissatisfied and perhaps about to leave an organisation may be subtle but sometimes not so subtle. These could include:
- A more than usual decrease in productivityAn overall negative change in attitudeA lack of focus on job related issuesFrequently expressing dissatisfaction with their jobIncrease in absenteeism, leaving early or arriving late to and from work
There are even be ‘telltale’ signs which can imply that an employee is most likely attending interviews or exploring other options. Most common of these signs are:
- Dressing up more than usual at work
- Taking more sick days or longer lunch breaks
A True Measure of Employee Turnover
Measuring employee turnover goes further than recording the amount of employees leaving an organisation over a specific period of time. Losing good employees can put a huge drain on a company and often times organisations overlook or miscalculate the true cost of employee turnover. To fully grasp the impact of Employee Turnover a ‘Cost of Turnover’ analysis needs to be incorporated. Only then will an organisation get an in-depth understanding of: what is costs; why it costs and perhaps most importantly, how to fix it.
Preventing Employee Turnover
To achieve this within an organization requires strategy for primarily, what is required would be cultivating an engaged and loyal workforce. For starters, an organisation can look at industries which traditionally have a high employee turnover rate and have implemented successful employee retention strategies. There are a number of strategies which organisations utilise to prevent employee turnover, we will take a closer look at these in a future post.
